So What Did Football Look Like Hundreds of Years Ago?
December 7th, 2008
What did an average schoolboy football game look like hundred of years ago? Well, most matches began with a “bully”. A bully is a type of scrimmage or scrum.
After scrambling for the ball within the scrum, one player ended up with it. The ball was then tossed, usually behind, or dribbled, Usually ahead, towards the “goal”. This was often as line, imaginary or otherwise, at the end of a field.
Perhaps the goal was between two trees, hedges or buildings. Sometimes the goal was two sticks stuck in the ground. At this stage each school team had its own ideas on the finer points of the game — on offside rules, tackling guidelines, ball-handling, ball out-of-play and so on. But from about the 1830s through to the 1860s, public school codes were developing and diverging into two distinct camps.
One camp had more dribbling than handling, and the other more handling than dribbling. One had less hacking — the other, as much hacking as possible. Some of these differences developed from environmental factors — such as the size and position of the pitch. Others grew from tradition, whim and the imagination.
So Why the Dribble?
How do you play football in a confined space? Perhaps in the back yard, or a narrow street? You can’t run far with the ball, nor boot it into oblivion. You have to dribble it, trying to outwit your opponent with dodging and quick passing. Football in schools with small outdoor spaces were often forced to develop the game along these lines. There were still scrums and ball-handling, but far less than games played in open fields.
Football at Charterhouse School developed within a cramped, city environment. From 1611 to 1873, the school’s London site restricted games the the opposite side, rather like modern rugby’s “drive tries”.
You can see from the goal-scoring that kicking and foot skills were highly valued. The two-point goal seems almost like converting a try in rugby football. In fact, quite a lot of the game reminds me of rugby. But in none of the games described so far could you run with the ball, which is very relevant to the way football developed later.
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